


December

by prisoners



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: And kinda sad, M/M, one direction - Freeform, sorry if it sucks, this is short, zarry squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2592377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prisoners/pseuds/prisoners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Which do you think is harder? Living with yourself or living without him?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	December

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this at like 1 am in a burst of intense creativity so i hope you enjoy it even tho it's probably super unrealistic. I wanted to write something that had a lot of dialogue and i didn't quite pull it off the way i wanted but oh well

Harry shifts in his seat uncomfortably. The plastic chair beneath him is hard, and he thinks that this probably isn't the best setting for getting someone to spill their secrets.

"Are you comfortable, Harry?"

The smiling woman he's hired to "fix him" is staring at him with an expression he'd mistake for pity if he wasn't so well acquainted with it. Her pencil skirt is dark, and her blouse is white, and the clock on the wall feels like it's ticking faster than it should. He nods uncertainly at her.

"Good. I don't want you to feel pressured at all when you're doing this, okay? This is your choice, remember?"

Of course he remembers. Like she said, it was his choice. He nods again because his throat feels so damn dry that he knows it'll hurt just to talk.

"Can you start by telling me a bit about you and Zayn's relationship?"

He shudders almost without realizing at the sound of his name. He hasn't heard it in a lifetime, but that doesn't mean it's not still embedded deep within him, taking up so much space that his bones splinter and organs rupture. It feels like something is awakening deep inside him, a monstrous beast he's been trying so hard to keep dormant all this time. But it's his tenth session, and he's determined to talk this time.

"That's a pretty open question, isn't it?" he asks with a little laugh, but his voice cracks, and his pain is nearly visible.

"Just try and answer it the best you can." She's still smiling like a black hole hasn't opened up in his chest and sucked out all the light in him.

"Well..." He clears his throat and looks at his hands. "We had a good relationship, I guess. I mean, we fought of course. But I think every couple does. It's just... one of those things."

He knows how much of a fucking idiot he sounds like right now, but what else is he supposed to say? How can he put into words the way his hands fit into every curve of Zayn's body, how their eyes found each other in any room, how he could reach out in the darkness and always find him, soft and warm and there? How can he sit here and tell this woman, this stranger, that? He looks up at her, thinking she's going to say something, but she's just smiling, not even writing in that little notepad of hers, and he realizes that today, he'll be doing most of the talking. He shouldn't have a problem talking to this woman about his feelings because in the grand scheme of things, she hardly matters. It's himself that he's having trouble talking to.

"We got along real well most of the time. He was just one of those people that everyone likes. He hated it when I smoked, but he didn't nag me about it like everyone else. And even when I was being an asshole, he just laughed, and then I laughed because he has - sorry, had - a really contagious laugh. And then I said sorry, and we moved on.

"And we laughed at everything." Harry smiles a bit, remembering. "We had so many little inside jokes that no one else could figure out. That's how I try to remember him: laughing." He feels it sharply, the joy that had surrounded them when they were together. It had been so palpable then that now, the hollow ache of its absence is unbearable.

"And we loved each other, of course. A lot. You know how when you're really happy, it feels like your heart's just gonna... explode? That's what it was like all the time with him."

Of course Harry can't get all this out in one go. His words are stilted in some places and breathless in others. They're sharp and hard, scraping his throat on their way out. A solid hour must trickle by before he feels like he can stop talking. He breathes a sigh of relief and tries not to think too hard about bare feet and summer laughter. 

"It sounds like you two had a beautiful relationship."

He chuckles a bit. "I don't know if I'd call it beautiful, but it was... it was good. Great, really."

She smiles. "I'm glad you're finally telling me all this, Harry."

He doesn't know what to say to that so he nods once more.

"Tell me about Zayn." Her fingers tap out a simple rhythm on the arm of her chair.

He swallows hard because this is a question he doesn't want to answer, more than the others.

"He wasn’t... very tall. Well, not as tall as me. And he could sing like- like an angel. I used to get so jealous of his voice, actually, and sometimes he didn't sing in front of me , so I wouldn't get upset. Even though he loved singing."

"So he sacrificed things for you a lot?"

The pause after her question is long and painful. He begins to rethink his decision to smear his heart all over these lavender walls.

"I mean, I guess. I tried not to ask him to. Like when I got a job here, I told him he didn't have to follow me all the way to New York. But he gave up his teaching job back home just to come with me. He did things like that for everyone. He was kinda like... selfless."

"Did you live with him?" Her lips are pursed, but she's still kinda smiling if that even makes sense.

"Yeah. We had our own little apartment. There was barely enough room to sleep." He laughs, and the sound is at odds with the despair that clings to the room like a heavy fog. "But it was ours."

"Who do you live with now?"

"Well, at first I-I was just alone. But I couldn't really do that, so I moved in with my buddy, Louis."

She's silent for a spell, thinking about something with her dark eyebrows all scrunched up. "What's that like?"

He's beginning to pause for steadily increasing intervals in between each question, just for enough time to collect his scattered thoughts. "He's a good guy. He always wants to go out and do something even when it's like three in the morning and he kinda acts like a kid but... he's all I've got."

"Was he the one who asked you to start coming here?"

"Yeah."

"How did you feel about that?"

"I was kinda pissed because I thought I was dealing with it okay, but he told me I was still fucked up and he just- he just kept pushing it until I gave in. So here I am."

The sounds of heavy traffic from the streets down below filter in through the crack in the window. It reminds him that this is all too real: this chair, this woman, his life. People outside are living their lives while his has come to a standstill, and that knowledge hurts perhaps more than anything else.

"Can you describe to me what it was like to live on your own?"

He wishes he had some water right now because his throat aches fiercely, and it feels like he's a question away from keeling over. Did he really think this would be easier than it was the first or the third or the eighth time? Because it isn't. But the sessions aren't going to change. He's the one who has to get stronger.

"It was... hard." He scratches a pimple on his chin, knowing that he can't just leave it at that. "It was really fucking hard."

The clock is ticking a little faster now, and he thinks that maybe he should mention it to her, but of course he doesn't.

"Like... I would wake up in the morning and expect him to be next to me, but he never was. Then I would make breakfast and I'd always fuck up and make it for two. Then I'd go off to work and shout goodbye, and the only thing I'd hear is my echo, and then I'd remember again for like the sixth goddamn time, and it wouldn't even be ten o'clock."

There's a tear streaming down his cheek, and he feels something akin to embarrassment burning white hot in his chest. Recalling all of this, things that happened mere months ago, is only feeding that big black hole nestled in his ribs. But he can't stop talking now. His mouth won't let him.

"And when I got home from work I just sat there and looked around. It was so empty and- and quiet. My life was quiet. One second I looked around and I could just see him laughing and dancing to one of those annoying songs he loved and then I blinked and I realized he's gone and he's always gonna be gone and I cried. I cried every day pretty much."

And he's crying right now, but he didn't want to then, and he doesn’t want to now. He wipes furiously at the tears dripping down his cheeks and inhales deeply in an attempt to control himself.

"It's okay to cry, Harry," she says, but what does she know? She wasn't raised in a house where weakness wasn't tolerated, where tears earned you a beating and you learned to be tough because you had to.

"Tell me..." She pauses and licks her thin lips. "Tell me about the first time you realized you were in love with him."

This he can answer. He loves telling this story, just like he loves telling people about any happy moment he ever had with him because it's so easy. It's the only way he can pretend he's still with him.

"We were walking down the street and it was really, really hot. Like fry an egg on the sidewalk hot. And the streets were really crowded cuz of some music festival so it was even hotter." His voice still shakes a bit from his previous answer.

"Then he spotted one of those little ice pop carts, and we decided to go get some, but it was attached to this bike heading away from us. So we started running to catch up with it, right? And the lady riding it started leading us down some weird secluded back alley, but we didn't even notice cuz we were all sweaty and laughing. Then finally we got close enough, and we yelled for her to stop.

"Then we find out she only speaks French. I'm fluent, so I was gonna order, but Zayn-" He laughs faintly and clears his throat. "He'd been practicing, so he wanted to try and he says, Venez à la maison avec nous, which really means, come home with us. And the lady gives him the funniest look and Zayn's just standing there like, what the fuck did I say? And I started laughing so hard. He just had this confused look on his face and sweat dripping down his forehead and I just- I just knew."

The woman is smiling at him, but this one feels a bit more genuine than the others she's flung his way. Over the next few sessions, she asks him more questions like this, ones about the warm moments they shared that are tinged with rose in his mind. He answers them gladly, composure regained, but in the back of his mind, he knows that soon the question he's dreading will be asked.

At his seventeenth session, about thirty minutes in, she asks it.

"Tell me about those days, Harry. When you first found out."

He glances out the window, and for some inexplicable reason, he expects to see some huge oak tree, its vast branches stretching towards the sky. But this is New York City, and all he sees is rows and rows of gleaming windows on some nameless skyscraper.

"I thought everything was normal. I mean, he looked a little pale, and he ate less. I heard him coughing at night, but I thought it was just the flu or something."

He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes tight. "So one day, I got back from this week long business trip, and he was gone, but his sister, Doniya was there, and I thought she was just there because her boyfriend kicked her out or something. But she was packing all of Zayn's stuff up, so I asked her what she was doing, and she looked at me weird and said, don't you know? So I said, what? And she said, Zayn's in the hospital."

"And how did you feel when she said that?" she interrupts for the first time, her fingertips lined up with each other in a triangle. Harry places his thumb in his mouth and begins to chew at his nail, a habit he's recently picked up.

"My heart just stopped, and then it started again but really painfully. It felt like my whole world just... shattered. I just froze and looked at her, and I'm thinking, is this some kind of joke? But obviously it wasn't because what kind of fucked up sister would you have to be to joke about something like that? And I asked why, and Doniya looked really pissed off all of a sudden, and she was like, how do you not know this?

"And I wanted to say I was on a business trip, but that's not really an excuse because we talked on the phone like three times a day, but he never told me. He acted like nothing was wrong, and I know I should've noticed because I'm - I was - his fucking boyfriend. And I feel like- like I must've loved him more than he loved me cuz he didn't even want to tell me that he was dying."

He lets out a choking sob that fills up the room far too quickly. He feels so small, so insubstantial in this office with the uncomfortable couch and smiley woman who may as well just be a prop to this pouring out of his heart. It's like she's not even here. He's as alone as he's felt every day since he left him.

"So we went to the hospital, and Doniya wouldn't even look at me, and honestly, I couldn't blame her. We went to his room and he was just lying there and he looked all tired and dried out like a washcloth that's been used too many times. But he smiled when he saw me, and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"He told me two days ago he'd started coughing up blood, so he went to the hospital and they told him he had lung cancer. And it was so... so weird to think about. It didn't even feel real cuz if-if you get cancer then you'll probably die, and I couldn't even imagine him dying because the people you love aren't supposed to die. I mean, it happens, but it's not supposed to."

The woman isn't writing anything down like most therapists do. In fact, she almost never writes anything down, for which he's grateful. It makes this feel a lot less like therapy. 

"So the next couple weeks I basically lived at the hospital while he did chemo, and he didn't get any better or any worse. I felt pretty shitty, but I knew he felt a thousand times worse, so I couldn't complain. Then one night he started coughing up blood, and there was so much. I-I really thought he was gonna die. They moved him into the ER, and I realized something. It was all my fault.

"The doctors never told me the actual reason, but I knew it was because of my smoking. He didn't want to hurt me, but he knew it too. Everyone did. So I stayed at home for a few days cuz I knew I couldn't look at the face of the person I basically murdered. Then... then Doniya called me and said, it's time, and I-I thought about it. I thought about staying home and letting him die alone because it hurt so damn bad to see what I'd done. But in the end, I went."

At this point, the collar of Harry's shirt is soaked with tears. He can't stop crying, and right now, it feels like he'll never be able to stop. It's sinking in that he's gone, and not for the first time. He thought that eight months ago as he bawled his eyes out curled up in a ball on that tacky shag carpeting he'd insisted on getting would be the first and last time he'd realize that Zayn is dead, but it keeps happening again and again, and each time destroys him a little more. He hates himself. He hates himself so fucking much, and this hatred is eating him up inside, expanding and burning everything it touches.

"So you blame yourself for all this?" she asks, almost startling him.

"Yes," he cries, and he knows he was much too loud, so he clears his throat and tries once more. "Yes."

"Why didn't he tell me earlier? Maybe I could've- I could've done something." 

"You can't cure cancer, Harry," she says gently.

"But I would've tried for him," he mumbles, sniffing deeply.

Another sob escapes his lips. It's just so unimaginably awful. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to get married in a year or two, then adopt a bunch of chubby babies and grow old together. At the very least, they were both supposed to live.

How does that even happen? How does your soul mate just up and fucking die in a matter of weeks? How are you supposed to just watch him waste away into a loose bag of bones and empty prayers? It doesn't make sense to him, and the synapses in his brain are straining to connect, to comprehend how this could've happened to him. It's so fucking unfair, and the worst part is, it's irreversible. He will never get him back, never trace his warm skin, never hear his radiant laugh, but he'll always love him in a way that rips apart every ligament holding him together.

"Harry, let me ask you a question." She speaks softly, after he's calmed down somewhat.

"Which do you think is harder? Living with yourself or living without him?"

At first, he thinks the answer is obvious. But then he realizes that this self hatred stings just as much as the overwhelming anguish. He doesn't know which is worse, but he doesn't care because he's experiencing both right now, and the pain is sharp and raw, and he can't think about anything else with this loss consuming him.

He bites his lip to hold back another sob.

"I don't know."


End file.
